Frederik Ramm wrote:
Zverik,
On 10.05.2013 10:29, Ilya Zverev wrote:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM/Plugins/GeoChat
That sounds great. I always wanted to have something like that!
I have some thoughts about it - not meant to criticize, I'm really
looking forward to seeing this used more widely!
I've got so much criticism on Russian forum, your points are quite
polite suggestions in comparison :)
* Are "private" messages really "private" in the senses that only the
user logged in as the recipient will receive them? If not, maybe
rename
to "directed messages" or so.
Yes, they are absolutely private: only a user with a fixed uid can read
them, and uids are meant to be kept private. In other words, while API
relies on user names, internal messaging works on user ids, so only a
client who knows a recipient id can read their private messages. And a
sender, of course.
* If this catches on, there will soon be demand for some kind of
authentication - that keeps me from joining the chat under the name
"Zverik" or so ;) maybe it could be implemented with OAuth, where the
server would check with the OSM server whether the logged-in user has
the same user name in OSM, and then notifies clients whether a
certain
user name is "authenticated" or not. People could still use any name
but
clients could make them show up in grey or so if they're not
authenticated.
Since this chat instance is aimed at OSMers, verification could be made
mandatory. But 1) I'm not sure how to do it right, without requiring
users to authentificate against the chat server; most users are still
logging in via username or e-mail. 2) Very few people use nickserv's
name protection, and I doubt taking another user's name would have
serious consequences.
Oh wait, I'm getting ideas on how to do it right. Still, I am not
introducing verification until there has been a case where it could
matter.
* I don't yet understand how messages are located. You seem to be
using
point coordinates only, so if i write something is that always mapped
to
the centre of my curren viewpoint? If I zoom out and have a 50x50km
area
on my screen, will I only see the messages pertaining to a 20km
circle
in the middle of my screen? - I have a feeling that maybe the plugin
and
protocol might benefit from extending this to use rectangles in
sending
as well as polling for messages.
All messages in a bbox R*2 km wide centered on a user's position are
returned. If you zoom out past "zoom 10" or its equivalent in JOSM,
public chat pane is turned off: it was made for local chat, and not as a
general talk box. A radius value of 20 km (actually, 30 now) was
determined by measuring a lot of distances and checking mapping parties
areas, and I don't intend to increase it. Users requesting bigger radii
usually are satisfied with my plans to include IRC in the plugin with
automatic regional channel selection. Also, private chats are not
restricted by visibility radius.
* Auto-login for the plugin would be great.
Just added it :)
* Maybe announce on JOSM's "message of the day" to get more people to
try it out?
I'm all for that, though this is for JOSM maintainers to decide:
"message of the day" is a quite powerful page, and I'm not sure I should
advertise my plugin(s) on it.
Great work!
Thanks!
IZ
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